Recently, the community of senior scientists have expressed their
dissatisfaction at the tall claims of researchers in academic science
departments which have encountered lot of backlashes in the world.
Why ? And what has gone wrong fundamentally?
Well, generally these are the observations.
"Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the
assumptions behind your assumptions.”
― Idries Shah, Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the
Sufi Way
Actual observations based reality i.e. not altering the intrinsic
attribute of the thing through any sort of assumption, extrapolation, tight
jacket hypothesis etc.
An observation which neither excludes the micro details nor compromises
on the macro view and does not compromise both to a chain of fallacies to which
human mind is vulnerable.
A process of observation which does not confuse information for
knowledge and knowledge for experience; thought and ideas formulated based on
these for wisdom and all these further decorated through well calibrated verbal
articulation appealing to intellect and confirmation biases.
These may inadvertently lead to unassailable prejudice, petrified
presumptions and start projecting these as the proof and claim with axiomatic
certitude as the ultimate truth.
Be it politics, religion, or science there are no over-simplified and
short cut solutions.
So, 'unbiased observation' when used not as a mere articulation of two
words or appropriated as a mere label but when practiced involves two enormous
paradoxes:-
One, to stand detached from the thing observed [because I am often
reminded of what M.Singer has once said, “There is nothing more important to
true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind, you are the
one who hears it”] and
Two, to become an intrinsic part of the thing observed [You are a
function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a
function of what the whole ocean is doing.―A. Watts]
The social engineers of various hues and colors mostly politicians,
religious leaders, media persons, business houses to name a few who
deliberately define these terms to suit their agenda. Now scientists too have
become gullible to this fallacy.
The following three quotes I find hit the nail more effectively.
"The simplicities of natural laws arise through the complexities of
the language we use for their expression."- Eugene Wigner
"Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and
easy answers, and to begin to think multi-dimensionally, to glory in the
mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes
and consequences that are inherent in each experience -- to appreciate the fact
that life is complex."- M. Scott Peck
“An array of coordinated genes is required to explain even the minutest
human phenomenon.’Discoveries' of a 'gambling gene' here and an 'aggression
gene' there are derided by the more serious and less publicity-prone scholars.
Yet, it would seem that even complex behaviours such as risk taking, reckless
driving, and compulsive shopping have genetic underpinnings."- The Selfish
Gene – The Genetic Underpinnings of Narcissism
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